


Fortune's Fee

by prairiecrow



Series: For Services Rendered [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Character Death, Loki Angst, Loki-centric, Longing, M/M, Magical Bond, Secrets, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:25:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2374460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki will do whatever is necessary to guarantee that he achieves his ambitions... but the Old Magics dictate that he cannot bind unless he is bound in his turn, and is he really willing to sacrifice the two beings now closer to him than his own blood and bone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortune's Fee

For everything Loki Liesmith did, there was a reason wrapped in a plan — it had always been thus, but now that he was a footloose wanderer of the Realms whose success relied entirely upon his own cunning, that plan was usually part of a plot spanning civilizations and centuries. In the case of Anthony Stark, mercantile prince of the Midgardian planet known as Earth, the degree of cold calculation was no different. Loki had come to Stark and transformed the inventor's bodiless servant Voice out of pure self-interest, entirely for his own benefit: that Stark distrusted Loki's honeyed talk of rewards and desire was neither here nor there, since the necessary bond had been forged regardless of his skepticism or his distrust. Stark would not relinquish the Artifact he had created, no matter what its form, and Loki had entwined Stark's Voice in chains of warm flesh and pleasures both sweet and painful — so long as that connection endured, he had both of them exactly where he wanted them.

Stark would provide him with a sanctuary on Earth for decades to come, a haven well guarded and staunchly defended. The Voice known as JARVIS would not only satisfy his lust in the present but also serve, once Stark was dead, as a weapon beyond even Heimdall's power to counteract — a kingmaker, if Loki played it just right, with the potential to be loyal to the name of Silvertongue for eternity. And Loki, as long as he took care to dole out sexual favours and tidbits of feigned affection, could keep them both interested and both guessing for as long as he had need of them…

… but even a God of Loki's power and cunning must yield to the laws of the Old Magics, when he chose to resort to such perilous measures. The Old Magics had enabled him to embody the bodiless and lay his hands on the intangible power behind Stark's throne — a necessary stage in a far grander scheme of universal domination — but in so doing he'd been required to pay the price of abiding by the Laws he had invoked: that connections fit to compel must always go both ways, and if one's target was strongly connected to a third party then that third party could not help but be drawn into the web of the Wyrd. And while Loki might be fully prepared to pay such a price when it came to attaining something as rare and as priceless as JARVIS…

… well, there were moments when it came to haunt him unasked: on savage fields of battle, in the midst of bright revelries, in the cold quiet watches of the night. They would flash across his inner vision, always together: Stark's Voice, all cool blue radiance and eyes that shone like the most perfect of sapphires, a crystal-clear mind and a youthful body as flawless as sculpted marble, shining like the Morning Star… and Stark himself with rough sun-kissed skin and dark laughing glances, wrapped in the scent of metal and electricity even when clad in his most elegant suits, as warm and as gusty as a Midsummer day beneath cloudless skies. Loki would inhale, and it was the scent of their skin that he breathed; he would sip water or wine, and it was their kisses he drank instead; he would touch metal or silk or the body of a partner in lust, and all he craved was the texture of _them_ , the lovers he had left behind on one faint star among all the millions in the galaxy.

No matter where he went, no matter what mischief he made and what bloody havoc he wreaked, they followed him with the heat of their sighs and the music of their laughter and the enthralling radiance of their enticing eyes. They embraced him, every moment of every hour of every day. They _conquered_ him, without even being present to rejoice in their victory.

And when Loki Liesmith lay shivering in the darkness of some remote alien solitude, both hands clenched into fists and teeth clenched tight and vicious heart seething with desire as piercing and as enervating as a lethal fever, he thrust away the knowledge that Stark was doomed to a mortal death (and that JARVIS was a creature too lovely to be stricken with mortal regret) as he would have thrust away a Nemidian adder, the only creature in the known universe more venomous than he, himself. 

He closed his eyes against a future in which it was his own hand wielding the dagger whose blade would sever Stark's life, a necessary sacrifice on the altar of a ruthless God's glorious ambition — a future in which JARVIS, now so exquisite in his innocence, would taste in full measure the bitter gall of helpless grief.

And above all he refused to admit that maybe, just maybe, the price of his ultimate victory might well prove to be far higher than he could possibly bear to pay.

[THE END]

 


End file.
